Yesterday I was trying to work, but work involves integrating OpenAI's API into blank.page, and OpenAI was down most of the morning. I decided to go to the beach instead.
At the beach I smoked weed. I tend to be more outgoing while smoked, less afraid of other people. I know this runs counter-intuitive to most people's experience, but to me the experience is akin to being drunk. If combined with alcohol, the effect is even more potent.
Shy kids tend to become serious people when they grow up. The shyness is always there, it just becomes covered by an armor which protects the shyness, which is really "fear of interaction with other people" because you are overly sensitive to rejection or whatever imagined threat the other person possesses.
Some weeks ago I did the same routine, I went to the beach without an agenda, I smoked some weed, and then I saw an attractive woman lying on the beach, alone. I approached her and asked her a reasonable question in Spanish and she replied that she was sorry, that she didn't understand me. "Oh, sorry", I replied in English, you look like you speak Spanish and you could be local, so I was asking if you know the beaches around this area.
She said she was from Italy and stood up to shake my hand, we chatted a little bit and I asked her if it was OK if I brought my stuff over, because I had left my backpack out of the way. She said of course.
We had a long conversation which after some time petered out, in hindsight I should have left the setting earlier, but I really didn't have an agenda, this was an experiment because I don't have experience approaching strangers (men or women), and rationally I know I did a spectacular job, by my emotional memory comes back to the little things I did wrong, to a feeling that by the end of our conversation she was a little put off by my disclosures, that in my haze my mind was wandering off when I should have been putting sharp attention.
The seriousness of my sober self is what protects me from the perceived "mistakes" of my high self. If I bypass the shell with alcohol or weed, I'll have regrets because my shell was pried open.
It's the uttermost strange sensation feeling yourself isolated and lonely, in a bubble, yet utterly incapable of reaching out to connect with other people.
Yesterday I decided I wouldn't approach anyone, I would respect my shell, because my judge was ruthless last time I overrode my inhibitions with weed. But I would establish eye contact with firm self-assurance, knowing I wouldn't approach, and I would smile.
The results of this experiment were... unsettlingly positive. First I made eye contact with a pair of very attractive tattooed women, they perked up and smiled back. I answered with a wide grin and continued walking, I can only imagine they thought I was taken as it was an open invitation to approach.
Then an unattractive girl sitting alone at the beach. She glanced and looked away, then came back to meet my gaze and smiled. What is this sorcery? I reached the end of the beach and found a woman in spectacular shape with her parents speaking in german. We exchanged eye contact and smiles, I sat down for lunch and she head off. Shortly after she came back and hung around. I was tempted to speak to her but I kept the rules of my own game strict.
I even sat on the sand to stretch, made eye contact with a beautiful girl in a group of three who were walking in my direction, the group stood just in front of me and the girl I liked said "let's sit down here" pointing just next to me (unpolitely close!) but the rest of the group protested that they wanted to be further away from the water. I just continued stretching.
I decided I had to repeat the experiment without weed. I knew I had to write down what happened here, so that I can compare it with this experience. I will most likely repeat the experiment tomorrow.